Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible.
2015 by Billy Epperhart
All rights reserved. The text and cover graphic of this publication, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher.
Published by: Wealthbuilders Inc.
Websites: wealthbuildersinc.org , billyepperhart.com
Cover Design and Content Layout By: Catalyst Media
creatingcatalyst.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN: 978-194424243-5
eISBN: 978-168222644-5
CONTENTS
LETTER FROM BILLY EPPERHART
Baking 101: When making something as simple as pancakes from scratch, it is important that the right ingredients are all included in the proper amounts. Without the proper measurements, something is bound to go wrong. And without the ingredients, well, you dont get quite what youre expecting.
I decided to surprise my wife, Becky, one morning with homemade pancakes. I purchased all of the ingredients the day before, and while Becky slept, I snuck into the kitchen.
When you have an intuitive, strong woman at your side, you quickly learn that its hard to pull surprises off! I whipped up the batter, heated up the pan and coated it with butter. I was quietly zooming around the kitchen and felt the relief sink in as I started pouring the batter into the pan. I was going to pull this off.
But then I noticed that my pancakes werent rising. Instead of fluffy, soft pancakes, I had thin, hard teacup plates. Becky awoke to find me puzzling over the mess.
Without a moments hesitation she asked, Did you forget the baking soda?
My head snapped to the counter where, sure enough, the orange box sat unopened.
I had tried my best to surprise her (and I guess in some way I did), but my disappointment was heavy. We pressed on though. Instead of eating china plates for breakfast, I took her out for a wonderful morning date. The restaurant used baking soda.
The key to this innocent story is the missing ingredient. Too often in the U.S., we are told that God wants us to prosper. But nobody is telling us how to prosper. Instead of choosing God as our only master, we choose money. We are mastered by our money.
Over my years working as an entrepreneur and an investor, Ive prayed a lot about finances. And through working with God, He gave me the missing ingredient: the Triple X Factor.
The Triple X Factor is the key for making the metaphorical pancakes in your life rise. It shifts our position relating to money from being mastered to mastering. It puts us in a place of wealth where we can give back. When we partner with God in this process, we are able to reach a place of being able to deeply invest in the Kingdom.
Through this book, I hope to finally commit to paper some of the most important lessons Ive learned along the path of wealth building. I pray that you are encouraged and equipped to reach new levels of wealthnot for the purpose of building bigger barns for yourself, but for the purpose of maintaining your barn and investing in the Kingdom of God.
Blessings,
Billy
Part One
BAKING SODA AND THE BASICS
Chapter One
UNDERSTANDING WEALTH
ITS GOD OR MONEY
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Matthew 6:24 (NIV)
Many people serve money without ever having made a conscious choice to do so. By not learning how to manage their money, they become a servant to their finances. So many of us have a heart that wants to boldly serve God. Yet we end up serving money by defaultsimply because of our situation in life.
My heart in writing this book is to teach you how to break the hold of money over your life so that you can be free to serve God. How awesome would it be to have all you need and, according to 2 Corinthians 9, to be able to give to every good cause! Thats a good place to be. So when I talk about Money Mastery, Im talking about you and me becoming the masters of our money as we serve God. Jesus made it plain: You cannot serve both God and money.
As we learn how to manage and control our finances, we start mastering our money. And the thing that I like the most is that in the process of money mastery, it becomes possible to learn how to make money. We can learn to cause an increase of finances in our lives. Then we are able to fully serve God in what He needs us to do.
I remember the first time I realized I didnt have to think about my monthly or annual budget. Its a freeing experience. Now Im not saying that I dont ever have to manage money. There is some education and work that goes into reaching this place of freedom. But I no longer have to think about whether or not Im going to make it from week to week or month to month or, for that matter, year to year.
The best part of money mastery is that now I have so much more time to focus on true riches only found in God. And I have the financial freedom to turn around and immediately do what God says. Its wonderful! And its not impossible to get there. Anyone can do this.
This book is as practical as it is spiritual. Ill provide the knowhow, experience and tools to empower you to become financially free. And Ill give you the scriptural foundation for why and how you should steward your wealth appropriately. All that will be left to do is for you to prayerfully take action and move forward!
THE MIDDLE MAN
Money is a representative of a certain quantity of corn or other commodity. It is so much warmth, so much bread.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If were going to master money, we first need to define and understand it. So what is money? In easiest terms, money is the middle man. I love this quote by Emerson. Money is really just a representative of other things. It is corn, movie night and diamond rings.
In reality, money prevents us from needing to carry chickens and bushes of apples with us to buy things. We dont have to bring a quarter of a cow to the grocery store to buy our Thanksgiving meal. We have this freedom because money acts as the currency in the middle. In its truest sense, money is our medium of exchange. We dont get paid for work (at least in the U.S.) in apples or chickens. We get paid in moneyand thats a good thing.
Money is also the representative for which we trade our time and value. We work; we get paid. We put our lifes energy into our work and for that we receive money.
Money also helps us to know the value of things. We are able to take an item and stick a dollar sign with an amount next to it. That tells us what the item costs, and more importantly, what the item is worth.
I think when we put money in this light, we can suddenly see how its not really that big of a deal. Its not something that much emotion should be directed toward. Loving or hating money is neither here nor there. Its what we do with money that becomes worth talking about.
THE GOOD SAMARITANS RESOURCES
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions, he had money as well.
Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister
Sometimes we want to do good for God or for people or for other things but are hindered by our lack of resources. If we dont have any resources, were stuck. As Thatcher said, the Good Samaritan didnt just have good intentions. He had resources that empowered him to take care of a person in need. Thats where we should aim to be.
